The UK Ministry of Defence, "Low-Carbon Warfare", and the struggle to construct novel sociotechnical imaginaries of future war

<p dir="ltr">In this article, we use the concept of ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’ to chart the struggle of a vanguard group of officials within the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) to articulate a new vision of ‘low-carbon warfare’ as a response to looming climate transition risks. Our investigation draws on official government documents published since 2018, as well as semi-structured interviews conducted with MoD officials and armed forces between June and October 2023. We find that, despite notable progress with discursively, institutionally and materially embedding a new sociotechnical imaginary of ‘low-carbon warfare’ within the MoD, significant resistance remains. Our findings emphasise the labour and the investment that is still required to embed new visions of low-carbon warfare in policy-impactful ways. More generally, our findings encourage those interested in ‘future war’ to pay greater attention to the sociotechnical politics that informs decisions about which visions and expectations should be taken seriously.</p>